Aftermath
by Flitter-Flutter
Summary: The events immediately following Edward's transmutation to bring back his brother. Warnings inside.
1. Waking Up

**Hello, ladies and gents. And all you little fuzzy kitties and puppies too. I be Flitter-Flutter, and I be posting my fifteenth fanfic…*sweatdrops* really I have no life…**

**Anywho, this is me trying to fill in a major major gap that BONES left unfilled. I do that a lot with my fics. It's really quite challenging…**

**Disclaimer: I own not Fullmetal Alchemist. If anything it owns me; why else would I be obsessed enough to write fanfiction?**

**Warnings: Nudity (not descriptive and **_**not**_** the sexual kind), and some angsty-type stuff. And blood and possible mild cursing later on.**

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For the first time in years, all was quiet.

_Years? _

Golden-brown eyes opened slowly, to find a high ceiling staring back at them, stabbing them with its brightness.

Alphonse raised his arm to shield his eyes, wondering why they were stinging, as though this was the first time in years they'd been exposed to open air.

He had difficulty controlling his arm. His nerves stung and tingled, having not felt anything in…years.

_Why do I keep thinking years?_

With a great deal of effort, Alphonse managed to push himself into a sitting position. His eyes were still adjusting, but he could see enough to be able to tell he was in some sort of ballroom. The floor was wide and spacious, and thick pillars held up the ceiling. At one end of the room was some sort of stage. At the other end, a pair of large doors stood closed.

Beneath him was an array, the likes of which (he thought) he had never seen before. He ran his fingers along the thick, black lines, wondering what the array's purpose was and how he had come to be in its center.

It was cold in the room; the instant Alphonse noted this he also realized he was naked. He glanced about nervously, hoping no one would see him like this.

Seeing no one, he breathed a sigh of relief, and slowly rose to his feet, his muscles feeling sore and stiff as he took a wobbly step toward the doors at the far end of the room.

His legs gave out under him; undeterred, Alphonse tried again.

After a few futile attempts, he finally stopped, and lay panting for a few moments.

_Can't stop here…_he thought, pushing himself up on his hands and knees, and shakily trying to crawl.

Even crawling became too much. Alphonse collapsed, and lay quietly crying on the freezing marble floor.

"Brother?" he asked, weakly. His voice was hoarse, and quiet. Yet another thing that felt like it hadn't been used in a long time. "Ed?"

He remembered, suddenly. The attempt to bring back their mother. Himself, being taken away; his brother's leg being broken down by the forces of Alchemy.

And then…

"I woke up here," he mused to himself, lifting his head slightly to gaze across to the doors he was unable to reach. "I woke up here, but where's…"

A horrifying thought crossed his mind.

"Brother!" he cried, but his voice was barely louder than a whisper, and, deep down inside, he knew Edward would be unable to hear him anyway. "Ed…"

_Is he dead?_

_No. Edward couldn't be dead! He just couldn't! He wouldn't let himself die…_

_But his leg…he's not going to be able to walk around without it…_

_Did he bleed to death? Did the rest of his body break down, little by little…_

Alphonse bit down hard on his lower lip, hoping that if he focused on that pain, he would stop imagining worse and worse things that could have happened to his brother. It didn't help.

_Brother's gone…_

That much was certain. Whether Edward was dead or not, he was certainly not anywhere in the large, silent room.

Feeling even colder, Alphonse curled up into a fetal position, hugging his knees and looking about him with bewilderment. What was he to do, alone, barely able to move, in an unfamiliar place with no idea how he got there or where his brother was?

_Brother…_

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**Yays! It will actually be a multi-chapter fic! This is new for me; thus far all I have written have been oneshots or serieses of oneshots, and poems. So this is a milestone for Flitter-Flutter! Be cool, review. The green button at the bottom is summoning you. Will you answer…the Summons…(makes dramatic and scary face)**


	2. Silent Guardian

**Chapter 2 is up! Flitter-Flutter is happy.**

**Disclaimer: Nope. Never owned FMA. Probably never will. It may or may not be a good thing I don't. (If I owned it, I would be desperately trying to plug up every little hole. Actually, I'm kinda trying to do that right now. There's so many…)**

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Rose had never really thought about how difficult it would be to carry two people at once. The baby was hungry, and so was wailing and waving his tiny arms and legs, which made him difficult enough to carry as it was. But Rose was also carrying Wrath, and although the Homunculus was a child who was missing two limbs, he was much heavier than he looked. He tried to help her support the baby with his one arm, but he was only half-conscious, and—judging from his cringing face—clearly unhappy about his close proximity to the crying infant.

Rose bit back a cry as she tripped on the long skirt of her dress and nearly fell over on the decaying road. Regaining her balance and readjusting her grip on the two children in her arms, she paused to take stock of her surroundings.

Ghostly white buildings stretched as far as the eye could see, shaded by the high roof of the large cave. The place was eerily silent; the only sounds she had heard for the past while had been her high heels, walking slowly and precariously over rocks and empty cobblestone streets.

_What happened to all the people here? _she wondered, shuddering. _How could thousands upon thousands of people just…vanish?_

The moment she thought that, she realized she was better off not knowing.

Her violet eyes fixated on one of the taller buildings, a temple of some sort. A tower stuck out from the top of it, and a cross stood vigil over the entombed city. Rose had no idea what that cross was supposed to symbolize, but somehow—even though it belonged to a religion that had probably died out long ago, and even though God had forsaken her more times than she could count—somehow, it comforted her. After staring at the silent guardian for a few moments, she sighed, and turned her face back toward the road she was walking on.

When she had been brought into the underground city by Dante, Rose hadn't paid much attention to her surroundings, and now she was mentally kicking herself for it. The ruins were confusing; a maze of abandoned buildings and streets and stairs.

_Which way is it to the surface?_

Wrath had passed out (which unfortunately resulted in making him several times heavier), and the baby, while not asleep, had at least the very least stopped crying. His wide blue eyes gazed about intently, wondering what it was his mommy found so interesting. Rose smiled reassuringly at her son.

"It's okay," she told him gently.

_Surface…_Rose squeezed her eyes shut as she thought._ Surface…that would mean up…which would mean…_

Turning her eyes and looking just past the church, she smiled as she saw a flight of stairs that seemed to go higher than any of the stairs that were on any of the buildings. They just went up, and up, and up…

_Stairs! _she finished her thought, smiling at her good luck as she walked over to them, slowly, the two children heavy in her arms, and her heels clicking against the stone floor.

She reached them in a matter of moments. Putting one foot on the bottom step, she paused and looked back, as though something called to her. Her eyes travelled up the church building and rested on the cross at the top.

"Thank you," she said, although for the life of her she did not know whom she was thanking.

**Okay, people. That be chapter 2.**

**Some very obvious Christian elements made it in there. I did not originally have that in there, it just kind of sneaked in under my nose…byproduct of me being Catholic, I guess. :D **

**BONES contradicted themselves. In one of the later episodes, Izumi reveals that Christianity is a religion that died out some time ago in Amestris; however, in episode 10, one of Psiren's disguises is a Catholic nun. Oopsies! :)**

**This chapter was pretty short, wasn't it? I'm not going to promise the next one will be any longer. I've decided I don't like making promises like that, because then I'm setting people up for possible letdowns…**

**The green button at the bottom is your bestest friend! Please click on it! :D**


	3. Saving Angels

**Chapter 3! Yays!**

**EDIT: I realized something unpleasant about this chapter and it bothered me way way way too much, so I'm editing it! Those of you who've read it already, apologies! :(**

**I'm going to need to get to Ed at some point…but I want to wrap things up with Alphonse first. I'm not really aiming for this fic to be all that long…**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist. If I did, Alphonse would **_**not**_ **be thirteen in the movie, because if he was a ten year old boy again at the end of the anime, then it logically follows that two years later, he would be **_**twelve**_**. Especially since his birthday is **_**after **_**Edward's. I think they honestly just took seventeen and subtracted four from it, which would be wrong....**

**There's some mild cursing in this chapter. And blood. :(**

**Now, without further ado, here's Chapter 3!**

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"He hasn't come back," Fletcher said, staring into the empty darkness of the secret passageway's entrance. "Neither has Al…"

"Damn it, Ed," Russell murmured. The fifteen year old was sitting in one of the pews of the old church, his arms and legs crossed and a terrible frown behind his blond bangs. "If you went and died down there…"

The two Tringhams had stood vigil in the church of the ancient religion, ever since Edward had gone through the secret passage into the underground city to rescue his kidnapped brother. He'd been gone for several hours now. Russell and Fletcher knew that the people Edward was up against were bad news, and they were beginning to fear that he wouldn't come back to them alive.

Another hour went by in unbearable silence; finally Russell pounded his fist beside him on the pew, the sound echoing against the walls and ceiling of the church.

"_Damn_, Edward!" he said again, rising to his feet and moving to stand next to his younger brother. Putting his hand on the frame of the entrance, he yelled into the inky blackness.

"We told you to come back _alive!_" he cried, his entire frame trembling. _"Where are you, Ed?!"_

Fletcher stared at his older brother with concern.

"He'll come back, Brother," the younger alchemist said, although his face betrayed the fact that he was thinking the same thing as Russell. "I'm sure of it. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he and Al are on their way back up right now…"

Russell was silent, his jaw clenched with a cold fury.

Both brothers stood there for a while, not saying anything, their ears straining for any sounds that would indicate that someone was coming up.

Russell frowned, and straightened up, his hands curling into fists.

"I'm going down," he said, taking a step into the passageway, but Fletcher grabbed his arm.

"Russell, listen…" he whispered. Russell looked at Fletcher, and as he did so, he realized he could hear it too.

The sound of footsteps, echoing up the passageway and into the church.

With bated breath, the Tringhams listened closer, their hearts thumping in their chests. Whoever it was was carrying something heavy, from the sounds of it. There was only one set of footsteps.

_Maybe one of them passed out and the other one's carrying him...please let it be Ed and Al….please let them be okay…_

Russell frowned as he listened; realizing something, all hopes of it being Edward and Alphonse shattered.

"Ed doesn't wear heels," he told Fletcher.

Fletcher listened closer, and realized his brother spoke the truth. Whoever it was _was_ wearing heels, and having a hard time in them, from the sounds of it.

"Who is it?" asked Fletcher, nervously.

Russell shook his head. "I don't know."

_Could it be one of the people who kidnapped Al?_ he wondered, a shiver going down his spine. If that was the case, then that certainly didn't bode well for Ed or Al…or the Tringhams, for that matter.

Stepping aside, Russell pressed his back to the wall, peering around the edge of the entranceway and gazing into the passage again. He lifted one hand in a defensive position, his other hand curled in a fist behind it.

"Fletcher," he hissed, and his brother nodded and took up the same stance on the other side of the entrance.

The footsteps came closer, and finally, Russell saw a shadow moving in the darkness. Ducking his head away from the entrance, he held his breath. Fletcher did the same.

They saw the figure out of the corner of their eyes; whirling around, they raised their fists high…

…and stopped short, realizing this person meant no threat to them.

She was a young woman, hunched over slightly from having walked a long way. She panted, her brown hair and pink bangs hanging messily in front of her face. What she was wearing was very impractical for walking up several flights of stairs with; not only was she in heels, but the skirt of her white dress was extremely wide, and long. It was miraculous that the Tringhams had never heard her tripping…

There was a large chunk of the skirt's fabric that seemed to have been torn away. They could see the petticoat underneath, and Russell thought he could barely make out the outline of a leg as well. He cleared his throat and averted his gaze.

The woman was trembling, clearly about to collapse, but her arms were wrapped tightly around the two children she carried, not allowing them to fall. One of them was an infant, who had apparently fallen asleep. However, Russell and Fletcher were horrified that the other one—a boy of maybe ten or eleven—was missing an arm and a leg. Although his shoulder and the stump of his leg had been bandaged with what appeared to be the missing fabric from the woman's skirt, blood had soaked through the bandages anyway, staining his long, scraggly hair and the left side of the woman's dress.

The woman gazed up at Russell through her pink bangs.

"Please…" she gasped, exhausted tears at the corners of her eyes. "Please, take them…"

Without a word, Russell took the maimed boy, while Fletcher gently lifted the infant into his arms. She smiled, gratefully, and then her legs collapsed beneath her and she was on her knees, gasping from exhaustion. Finally, she looked up at Russell, her eyes pleading.

"Take him to…a hospital," she panted, "b-before he bleeds to death…"

"Who are you?" Russell asked.

"R-Rose," she said, her entire frame shaking. "I'm…Rose…"

Fletcher gently rocked the baby in his arms.

"Did you see Ed?" he asked. "Was he down there?"

A long silence went by, broken only by the girl's pained gasps.

"He…said he would destroy the place…" Rose said, finally. "So that…no one else could…wonder about…the Stone…"

Both Tringhams breathed a sigh of relief. So Edward, at least, was okay. Russell looked down at the child in his arms again, and realized that along with fabric from Rose's skirt, he also recognized black cloth that looked like it had come from Edward's jacket. _Oh, Ed..._

"What about Al?" he interrupted, gripping the boy tighter in his arms. "Where is he?"

Rose looked down at her bloodstained dress, and small, mournful sounds escaped her lips. It took the Tringhams a moment to realize she was crying.

"He…he's gone," she said, finally, raising her brown hands and burying her face in them. "…he's gone…"

Russell and Fletcher exchanged worried glances. Frowning deeply, Russell turned and began walking down the aisle toward the doors of the church.

"I'm taking this kid to the hospital," he said. "Fletcher, look after them, okay? And keep a lookout for Ed, too."

The younger Tringham nodded. Supporting the baby with one arm, he wrapped his other arm around Rose's shoulders, offering what little comfort he could give.

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**This chapter's a lot longer…**

**It seems kind of weird, in my previous chapter Rose seemed fine, but all of a sudden she's on the verge of a breakdown. I guess all those stairs must have gotten to her…poor girl :)**

**Yeah. I hope I didn't mess it up or upset you people who liked seeing Russell without a shirt, but it was bothering me too much...I had to change where Wrath's bandages came from...don't spear me! X(**

**Yeah, Russell cursed…I feel kinda bad about that now. I hate cursing, I really really hate it…I'll try to avoid it in the future. It's really hard to avoid it when you're writing fanfics for Fullmetal Alchemist of all things, but still…**

**Poor Al, he's still trapped in the underground city. He'll get rescued soon, least I hope so…:)**

**The review button is hypnotizing you with its beauty…you are in the mood to review…you are in the mood to review…you are in the mood to review…:D**


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